Bitch Media - prisonshttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/579/0
enTaking Down the Flag Doesn't Signal the End of White Supremacyhttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/taking-down-the-flag-doesnt-signal-the-end-to-white-supremacy-the-legacy-of-slavery
<p class="MsoNormal"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/confederate_stars_and_bars_flag_captured_at_columbia_south_carolina_-_wisconsin_veterans_museum_-_dsc02996.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="460" /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>A Civil War-era Confederate flag captured in Columbia, South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag flying outside the state capitol building was finally removed today. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Confederate_%27Stars_and_Bars%27_Flag,_captured_at_Columbia,_South_Carolina_-_Wisconsin_Veterans_Museum_-_DSC02996.JPG" target="_blank">Photo via Creative Commons.</a>&nbsp;</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Today, the Confederate flag finally comes down from outside the South Carolina capitol building. Two weeks ago, activist&nbsp;<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/bree-newsome-on-removing-the-confederate-flag-i-did-it-because-i-am-free">Bree Newsome</a>&nbsp;scaled the flagpole and took it down herself, but now it's coming down for good after legislators and the governor agreed to remove the stinging symbol of American racism.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While we can take time to rejoice in the (permanent) removal of this symbol of white supremacy, let's not assume this flag is the final vestige of slavery in the United States. "Many states celebrate the era of slavery with Confederate holidays and by honoring the defenders and architects of slavery while ignoring the history of enslavement," explains a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4e_djVSag4" target="_blank">new video by Equal Justice Initiative</a>&nbsp;(EJI). The video, called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4e_djVSag4" target="_blank">Slavery to Mass Incarceration</a>," connects the history of slavery (and its accompanying justification of white supremacy) with today's epidemic of mass incarceration. The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.eji.org/raceandpoverty" target="_blank">Equal Justice Initiative</a>&nbsp;works with people sentenced to death row, juvenile prisoners, people who have been wrongfully convicted, people whose poverty denied them effective legal representation at trial, and those whose trials were marked by racial bias and/or prosecutorial misconduct. The organization is based in Alabama, where <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf" target="_blank">647 of every 100,000 people</a> is in prison—and <a href="http://www.doc.state.al.us/docs/MonthlyRpts/2015-04.pdf" target="_blank">56.5 percent</a> are African-American.</p>
<p><iframe width="670" height="377" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r4e_djVSag4?rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">EJI founder and director Bryan Stevenson narrates this history, from the first Africans shipped to the colonies in 1619 (holding the legal status of servant, he points out), to today's racial profiling, police violence, and mass incarceration of African Americans. But "Slavery to Mass Incarceration" is no dry narrative—time lapse sequences by&nbsp;artist <a href="http://mollycrabapple.com/" target="_blank">Molly Crabapple</a> illustrate each fact with a haunting (and beautiful) watercolor image.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As the Confederate flag comes down, it's important to recognize that white supremacy is not simply a relic of the Bad Old Days. As both "Slavery to Mass Incarceration" and <a href="https://twitter.com/BreeNewsome" target="_blank">Bree Newsome&nbsp;point out</a>, it is still very much alive—and active—throughout our nation. The legacy hasn't gone away simply because a flag has been removed. We have seen this in the police killings of Black people across the nation—from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/us/in-tamir-rice-shooting-in-cleveland-many-errors-by-police-then-a-fatal-one.html?_r=0" target="_blank">12-year-old Tamir Rice</a> to <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/gender-and-race-and-police-violence-women-ferguson-michael-brown" target="_blank">93-year-old Pearlie Golden</a>. We also see it in the disproportionate arrests and imprisonment of African-Americans. In 2013, among <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf" target="_blank">people in state and federal prisons</a>, nearly one-third of the 1,412,745 men were Black. In local jails, Black people <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/jim14.pdf" target="_blank">made up 35 percent</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These disproportionate numbers, the video reminds us, are some of the enduring legacies of slavery and white supremacy. "Today, a presumption of guilt is assigned to many people of color who are disproportionately arrested, convicted of crimes and sent to prison. African-Americans are six times more likely to be sent to prison for the same crime as a white person."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The facts are all around us: This spring, the <a href="http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/disproportionate_arrests_in_san_francisco.pdf" target="_blank">Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice released a report</a> finding that in San Francisco, African-American women were arrested at a rate 13.4 times higher than women of other races. This disparity isn't new, the report notes, but has been growing since 1980 when Black women were 4.1 times more likely to be arrested than women of other races. San Francisco isn't alone in disproportionately policing, arresting and incarcerating Black women: In 2013, more than one-quarter of the &nbsp;<a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf" target="_blank">women in state and federal prisons</a> were Black.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just this week, the Prison Policy Initiative, a criminal justice think tank, released <em><a href="http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/income.html" target="_blank">Prisons of Poverty</a>, </em>a report providing the pre-incarceration incomes of people in prison. The report proves what many who have been working around issues of mass incarceration have known for years: People who end up in prison are poorer than their non-incarcerated counterparts even before they go to prison. It also shows another legacy of racism and white supremacy: the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/" target="_blank">vastly lower incomes of African Americans</a> even in the twenty-first century.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><img src="http://static.prisonpolicy.org/images/men_income.jpg?v=1" alt="" width="670" height="400" /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before we dive into the report's income disparities by race, let's look at the overall findings. The Prisons of Poverty report demonstrates that, despite all the talk of Leaning In, this country still has a long way to go before closing the gendered wage gap. The median income for a woman who is not in prison is $23,745. In comparison, the median income for a man who has not seen the inside of a prison cell is $41,250.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now let's add in the incarceration factor. The median annual income of an incarcerated woman before she went to prison was $13,890, a 42 percent difference from her non-incarcerated counterpart. For men, the disparity widens dramatically—$19,650 is the pre-incarceration income, a 52 percent difference from his non-incarcerated counterpart. When you add race into the equation, incomes drop dramatically. For Black men in prison, the pre-incarceration income is $17,625, the lowest of all the races surveyed. For Black women, their $12,735 is only slightly above the $11,820 earned by Hispanic women before prison.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"Racial bias remains a serious problem and is a direct and lasting legacy of American slavery and our failure to deal with the history of racial injustice," the "Slavery to Mass Incarceration"&nbsp;video sums up. That's a belief shared by many working to end racism in all of its forms, including mass incarceration.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So today, even though one symbol of white supremacy has been taken down, we need to keep focusing on what needs to be done to fully eradicate this poisonous legacy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/in-maryland-a-felony-conviction-may-no-longer-be-a-barrier-to-the-ballot" target="_blank">In America, There Are 5.4 Million Adult Citizens Who Are Not Allowed to Vote</a></em></p>
<p><em><em>Victoria Law is a voracious reader and freelance writer who frequently writes about gender, incarceration and resistance. She is also the author of&nbsp;</em><a href="http://resistancebehindbars.org/" target="_blank">Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women</a><em>.&nbsp;</em></em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/taking-down-the-flag-doesnt-signal-the-end-to-white-supremacy-the-legacy-of-slavery#commentsactivismprisonsRacePoliticsFri, 10 Jul 2015 20:53:06 +0000Victoria Law32405 at http://bitchmagazine.orgA New Film Tells the Story of Women Who Were Imprisoned for Killing Their Abusershttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/a-new-film-tells-the-story-of-women-who-were-imprisoned-for-killing-their-abusers
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/the_perfect_victim_image.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="529" /></p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.theperfectvictim.com" target="_blank">The Perfect Victim</a>, </em>a powerful documentary that is <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/665302" target="_blank">streaming for free online</a>&nbsp;this summer, aims to fill a hole in our society’s discourse around domestic violence and incarceration.</p>
<p>The film focuses on four Missouri women—including Shirley Lute, Tanya Mitchell, Carlene Borden, and Ruby Jamerson—who were given lengthy prison sentences after killing their abusive husbands. For many of us, the 2012 case of&nbsp;<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/marissa-alexander-illustrates-how-abuse-survivors-get-further-abused-by-the-legal-system" target="_blank">Marissa Alexander</a> brought this topic to the forefront of our minds—in a high-profile trial, Alexander served over 1,000 days behind bars for firing a warning shot over her abusive husband’s head. As the story gained national attention, the country was faced with a big question: Are victims of <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-in-prison-for-fighting-back-against-domestic-abuse-ray-rice" target="_blank">domestic violence justified in defending themselves</a> against their abusers? As seen in <em><a href="http://www.theperfectvictim.com/" target="_blank">The Perfect Victim</a></em>, the U.S. justice system often considers women who fight back against abuse to be criminals themselves.</p>
<p>Director Elizabeth Rohrbaugh opens with the typical jackassery that I have come to expect from our society: a radio talk show host, delivering the headlines to his listeners, explains in shock and horror what these terrible women have done to their poor husbands. Why didn’t they just leave? How can people think these women should be able to get away—literally—with murder? Why didn’t they call the police? Listeners call in and give their narrow-minded opinions.</p>
<p>Then comes the mic drop that gets the movie rolling: A woman calls in and, in a quiet and hesitant voice, says, “Hi, I’ve been beaten by my husband, and it’s not easy to just leave.” The host probes her, asking her what’s stopping her from “getting the heck out of there.” The caller sighs heavily, saying, simply: “I love him.”</p>
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/tanya_mitchell.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="559" /></p>
<p><em>Tanya Mitchell's husband Jimmy often beat her and threatened to kill her. After she shot him, she was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison. She was granted release in 2013.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>During the 1970s and ‘80s, when the documentary’s main subjects were convicted of murder, testimonies of previous abuse were inadmissible in Missouri courts in cases like these. In 1995, however, courts finally started acknowledging Battered Spouse Syndrome as part of these cases (why we have to pathologize trauma in order to validate women’s experiences is a discussion for another day). Still, defense attorneys encouraged their clients to keep prior abuse a secret, because the jury could see it as motive. In 1998, a group of lawyers created the Battered Women’s Clemency Coalition and selected 11 women who were incarcerated for killing their husbands before prior abuse was admissible in court. The coalition fought for them to be granted clemency, arguing that these women would never have been given such long sentences had the courts taken their trauma and abuse into account.</p>
<p>In 2004, the governor of Missouri, Bob Holden, granted clemency to two of these 11 women. One of these women was Shirley, a woman who endured horrific abuse since the age of four, first from her father and then from her husband, Melvin. Beaten, raped, and held captive, Shirley eventually asked her son to kill her husband. When the murder was discovered, she was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Shirley is the first “success story” of the documentary: We see show old footage of Shirley when she first appealed for clemency back in the late '90s, then present-day footage of her at home marveling at her singing-and-dancing teddy bears—unheard of before she was locked away in prison—and in a healthy relationship with another man.</p>
<p>The documentary switches from one storyline to the next as it details the lives of the four women, including Carlene, who married her abusive police officer husband when she was 14, and Ruby—the film’s sole Black victim—who, by the end of the film, is still incarcerated but is set to be released in the coming year. The storylines blended together so much that, truthfully, it was hard to keep everyone’s name and situation straight. But, the power of their stories came through even as the details got a bit confusing.</p>
<p>For me, the most insight I gained came from listening between the lines. Ruby, for example, starts talking about how if only she were thinking clearly enough, she should have just taken her son and left her abusive husband. “But sometimes,” she says, “you just get tired of running.” This internalized victim-blaming is so prevalent in our society, and is only a short jump away from the question of morality that plagues the documentary: Were these women right to kill their abusers? Should they have been sent to prison for decades for doing so?&nbsp;</p>
<p>The end of the documentary is hopeful. Though the women have trouble adjusting to life after prison, Shirley has married her boyfriend and is living happily, Carlene lives in her own apartment and works for a hotel housekeeping service, and Tanya is savoring the small joys of life with her family. "In prison, when you get a visit, it's a brief hug," she says. "Now, I can hold my mom as long as I want to. I can give her a hug forever and not just until the count of five." Meanwhile,&nbsp;Ruby is set to be released very soon. &nbsp;These four women were able—with a lot of aid from lawyers and volunteers—to get out of prison. But what about the other women left behind?&nbsp;The complex dimensions of the systemic problems don't get much explicit discussion in<em> The Perfect Victim</em>. Instead, we're left to consider on our own the thousands of women whose stories will aren't made into films. What about the <a href="http://legislation.sinbysilence.com/about-ab-593" target="_blank">93 percent of women in California</a> who were abused by the person they killed? The <a href="http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/women_in_prison/?source=uv_social" target="_blank">75 percent of incarcerated women who are domestic violence survivors</a>?&nbsp;The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/17/us/us-state-prisons-abuse/" target="_blank">one in 10 women who will be sexually assaulted</a> while in prison? It's also important to note that the documentary told the story of only one woman of color, when in reality, <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/03/13/11351/the-top-10-most-startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank">Black women are incarcerated three times more often</a> than white women.&nbsp;But <em>The Perfect Victim </em>carries a heavy&nbsp;burden for addressing the issues that exist therein, since humane discussions of domestic violence and incarceration are so rarely seen on screen. While the documentary only scratches the surface on these huge problems, it could be fodder for a dozen more films.</p>
<p><em>Watch the trailer for </em>The Perfect Victim:&nbsp;</p>
<p><iframe width="670" height="377" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uppykCIs5Dw?rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-in-prison-for-fighting-back-against-domestic-abuse-ray-rice" target="_blank">How Many Women Are in Prison For Defending Themselves Against Domestic Violence?</a></em></p>
<p><em>Grace Manger is Bitch’s New Media intern and a recent graduate of Kalamazoo College. In her spare time, she reads feminist and queer theory, drinks coffee, and rotates between Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram like the A+ millennial she is. Follow her&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/gracemanger" target="_blank">@gracemanger</a>.</em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/a-new-film-tells-the-story-of-women-who-were-imprisoned-for-killing-their-abusers#commentsdocumentarydomestic violenceprisonsMoviesFri, 10 Jul 2015 20:20:08 +0000Grace Manger32397 at http://bitchmagazine.orgStudents Successfully Get Columbia University to Divest $10 Million from Private Prisonshttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/students-successfully-get-columbia-university-to-divest-10-million-from-private-prisons
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/by_jochiang.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="440" /></p>
<p><em>Columbia University students protesting the school's investment with private prison companies. Photo by Jo Chiang.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>Today, Columbia became the first university in the United States to divest from private prison companies. Since early 2014, <a href="http://columbiaprisondivest.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">students have been campaigning</a> to get the university to sell off its roughly $10 million worth of shares in two companies that run prisons and immigration detention centers.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Prisons are “fundamentally racist,” said student organizer Dunni Oduyemi in a statement after the vote by the school’s Board of Trustees to divest from G4S, the world's largest private security firm, and Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States. “We hope that private prison divestment campaigns, with the abolitionist vision of a larger anti­prison movement, can help us start working towards divesting from the idea that prisons equal justice.”</p>
<p>For-profit prison companies are a huge lobby in the United States and they <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/">lean on political candidates to support new prison construction</a> and privatizion of existing prisons. <a href="https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration">According to the ACLU</a>, that lobbying is paying off: The number of people in private prisons increased by approximately 1600 percent between 1990 and 2009. There are now about&nbsp;<a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/by-the-numbers-the-u.s.s-growing-for-profit-detention-industry">130 privately run prisons</a>&nbsp;in the country and nearly half of all immigrants who are detained are held in privately run facilities. While private prison companies say they can help governments cut costs, private prisons have been the sites of numerous cases of violence and exceptionally bad conditions. They also often don’t wind up saving governments money at all, in part because some companies have <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21694-shocking-facts-about-americas-for-profit-prison-industry">struck deals with states</a> that guarantee maintaining certain prison occupancy rates even if crime goes down.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/politicaleducation.jpg" alt="" width="670" height="670" /></p>
<p><em>A banner on campus calling attention to the school's investments. Photo courtest&nbsp;<a href="http://columbiaprisondivest.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Columbia Prison Divest</a>.</em></p>
<p>In 2013, Columbia students first learned that the university had more than $10 million of its endowment invested in shares of the &nbsp;two private prison companies. In February 2014, a group of students formed the <a href="http://columbiaprisondivest.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Columbia Prison Divest</a> campaign and delivered a letter to the school president demanding that the school divest. Over the next year and a half, the students organized protests on campus and gained support from the school’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing to divest from the companies.</p>
<p>After today’s vote, a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/23/us/columbia-university-prison-divest/index.html" target="_blank">Columbia spokesperson emailed out a statement</a> that says the school will never again invest money from its $9 billion endowment with private prison companies. "This action occurs within the larger, ongoing discussion of the issue of mass incarceration that concerns citizens from across the ideological spectrum," the statement said.</p>
<p>It’s often hard to get political support for reducing prison populations and closing prisons because politicians want to appear “tough on crime”—and because <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/in-maryland-a-felony-conviction-may-no-longer-be-a-barrier-to-the-ballot" target="_blank">millions of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people can’t vote</a>. But the work of groups like these Columbia students helps to make support for prisons politically unsavory. Let’s hope this spreads.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-in-prison-for-fighting-back-against-domestic-abuse-ray-rice" target="_blank">How Many Women Are in Prison For Defending Themselves Against Domestic Violence?&nbsp;</a></em></p>
<p><em>Sarah Mirk is Bitch Media's online editor.&nbsp;</em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/students-successfully-get-columbia-university-to-divest-10-million-from-private-prisons#commentsactivismprisonsPoliticsTue, 23 Jun 2015 23:49:08 +0000Sarah Mirk32246 at http://bitchmagazine.orgSystemic Racism: Is That Really a Thing?http://bitchmagazine.org/post/systemic-racism-is-that-really-a-thing
<p class="p1"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/jay_smooth.png" alt="" width="670" height="364" /></p>
<p class="p1">Racial justice group <a href="https://www.raceforward.org/" target="_blank">Race Forward</a> has a new series of short videos about a big topic: systemic racism.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">As Race Forward Publisher Rinku Sen explains in an intro video, it’s important for people to understand what “systemic racism” actually means. “We explicitly focus on systemic racism in order to move the country’s conversation on race forward,” says Sen. The <a href="https://www.raceforward.org/videos/systemic-racism" target="_blank">videos focus on eight different topics</a>, including housing discrimination, government surveillance, and immigration policy. Here's one on incarceration:&nbsp;</p>
<p><iframe width="670" height="377" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-0B2LUGByb8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p class="p1">Each of the videos starts with catchy, upbeat music, like the intro to a wacky sitcom. Then Jay Smooth appears onscreen, apparently interrupted during his normal daily activities of eating hotdogs or sitting on steps outside a grandoise building. “Oh hey! I didn’t see you there,” he says. “If you’re like most Americans, you probably say to yourself all the time, ‘Systemic racism. Is that really a thing?’”&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">Over the next minute, Jay lists off alarming statistics about race in America: Black Americans are 13 percent of population, but only have 2.7 percent of the country’s wealth. Job applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get a callback than applicants with Black-sounding names. In 2011, the NYPD did targeted surveillance of people with “ancestries of interest.” Then, in each video, he wraps up, “Do you know what that’s called? That’s called systemic racism. And yes, it’s really a thing.” And there’s this screen:&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/systemic_racism.png" alt="systemic racism" width="670" /></p>
<p class="p1">So good.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">I can definitely see sending these videos to people who need an intro course on systemic racism—people who don’t see the links between race and issues like wealth inequality.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/ruth-bader-ginsburg-quotes-shakespeare-to-explain-racism-to-the-supreme-court" target="_blank">Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes Shakespeare to Explain Racism to the Supreme Court.</a></em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/systemic-racism-is-that-really-a-thing#commentsprisonsracismRaceTue, 28 Apr 2015 22:41:20 +0000Sarah Mirk31500 at http://bitchmagazine.orgIn America, There Are 5.8 Million Adults Who Are Not Allowed to Votehttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/in-maryland-a-felony-conviction-may-no-longer-be-a-barrier-to-the-ballot
<p><img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/112/295899135_f83c2c1551_b.jpg" alt="voting booths" width="670" height="420" /></p>
<p style="padding-left: 90px;"><em>Not everyone gets to see the inside of a voting booth. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/93607538@N00/295899135/" target="_blank">Photo by N. Shepard</a>.</em></p>
<p>If you’re an American citizen, you have the right to vote. Unless you’re an American citizen who’s been convicted of a felony. Then, in almost every state, your right to vote is taken away—sometimes for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Disenfranchisement laws aimed at people convicted of felonies currently prevent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1767&amp;id=167">nearly 5.8 million people</a>&nbsp;from voting. &nbsp;And because people of color are more likely to be arrested nationwide, these anti-voting laws take away a basic right disproportionately from Black and Latino Americans. In Maryland, approximately half of the 40,000 people denied the right to vote are African-American.</p>
<p>These alarming numbers prompted advocates to push Maryland’s legislature to change this reality. They were successful--last week, legislators&nbsp;<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/30207-maryland-legislature-approves-bill-to-restore-voting-rights-to-40-000-citizens">approved a bill</a>&nbsp;to restore voting rights to people who have been convicted and incarcerated. The bill is now headed to the governor's desk for his approval. This is a landmark moment for a voting rights issue that, even during the hoopla around the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, rarely makes headlines.</p>
<p>Almost every state in the country has laws denying people with felony convictions the right to vote in prison, but laws vary wildly about what happens once they’re released. Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/map-state-felony-disfranchisement-laws">do not allow</a>&nbsp;people convicted of felonies to vote for the rest of their lives. In the 2000 presidential race, felony disenfranchisement laws made a crucial difference between votes for George W. Bush and Al Gore. The infamous recount hinged on a few hundreds votes in a state where 750,000 people <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/11/voteless-florida">had been stripped of the right to vote</a>&nbsp;because of a previous conviction. "Had fewer than two percent of the disenfranchised in Florida voted, Gore would have probably been elected president,"&nbsp;<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/11/voteless-florida">noted</a>&nbsp;Sasha Abramsky. To this day in Florida, the ban on voting keeps nearly ten percent of the state's population from the polls.</p>
<p><img src="http://bitchmagazine.org/sites/default/files/u2583/prison_final.jpg" alt="prisons are a feminist issue" width="670" height="350" /></p>
<p>In Iowa, Governor Terry Branstad changed a policy which gave people back voting rights once they were no longer under state supervisions to one that strips people convicted of felonies of their voting rights for life—unless the governor personally restores their voting rights. Since the new policy took effect, more than 8,000 people have finished their prison sentences or community supervision but&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/24/iowa-felons-voting-rights-terry-branstad_n_1622742.html">less than a dozen</a> have successfully had their rights restored. In 2012, 65-year-old Richard Straight, an Iowa resident with a felony conviction, said that, although he'd like to vote in the presidential election, he&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/24/iowa-felons-voting-rights-terry-branstad_n_1622742.html">does not think it's worth the fight</a>. "I've only got a few years left of living. I might as well kick back and relax and live my life instead of fighting the system like that," he said.</p>
<p>Banning voting rights for people who’ve spent time in prison means, of course, that millions of people whose lives have been affected by the justice system have no say in whether the next elected official would introduce more Tough on Crime policies or is open to sentencing reform and less punitive policies. It also means that elected officials need not take into account the needs and demands of the constituents who are formerly incarcerated. Given the disproportionate incarceration of people of color, it's no surprise that voter disenfranchisement does so as well: The Sentencing Project estimates that approximately one-third of the 5.8 million people no longer able to vote&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1767&amp;id=167">are African-American</a>.</p>
<p>In a speech last year, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/us/politics/holder-urges-states-to-repeal-bans-on-voting-by-felons.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=Politics&amp;module=RelatedCoverage&amp;region=Marginalia&amp;pgtype=article&amp;_r=2#story-continues-2">Attorney General Eric Holder called on states to nix their disenfranchisement laws</a>, saying the system was a vestige of racist policies in the post-Civil War South. “Those swept up in this system too often had their rights rescinded, their dignity diminished, and the full measure of their citizenship revoked for the rest of their lives,” Holder said.</p>
<p>But in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/map-state-felony-disfranchisement-laws">thirteen states and the District of Columbia</a>, a previous conviction is not necessarily a barrier to the ballot. In New York state, for example, once a person has finished parole, they’re is able to vote. If the person was convicted and sentenced to probation, she need not wait until her sentence is complete to cast her ballot. This means that formerly incarcerated people can not only get involved in advocating for systemic change in the courts and prisons, but also have the potential to vote legislators in or out of office. This is a power that police and correctional officers' unions have utilized both in New York and other places. But for those in states with more onerous disenfranchisement laws, their demands can be more easily ignored by those in political power.</p>
<p>If Governor Hogan signs the bill into law, 40,000 formerly incarcerated voters will be able to go to the Maryland polls this election day.&nbsp;That’s a change worth cheering for.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/sentenced-to-41-years-in-prison-for-a-miscarriage-purvi-patel-case" target="_blank">A Woman Was Sentenced to 41 Years in Prison for a Miscarriage.</a></em></p>
<p><em><em>Victoria Law is a voracious reader and freelance writer who frequently writes about gender, incarceration and resistance. She is also the author of&nbsp;</em><a href="http://resistancebehindbars.org/" target="_blank">Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women</a><em>.&nbsp;</em></em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/in-maryland-a-felony-conviction-may-no-longer-be-a-barrier-to-the-ballot#commentsprisonsRacevotingPoliticsWed, 22 Apr 2015 18:20:41 +0000Victoria Law31346 at http://bitchmagazine.orgPrivacy Should Be a Right—Regardless of Who You Arehttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/privacy-isnt-a-privilege-and-not-just-for-female-celebrities-strip-search-prison-naked-photos-leaked
<p class="MsoNormal"><img src="http://aflixionado.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Compliance.jpg" alt="a woman looks nervous to be strip-searched in the movie Compliance" width="670" height="350" /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>In the movie "Compliance," a woman is detained for suspicious reasons and secretly filmed being strip searched.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">"Privacy is a privilege,"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Roxane Gay reminded us in her&nbsp;</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/01/celebrity-naked-photo-leak-2014-nude-women">recent essay about the leak of naked photos of several young, famous women.</a></span><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">&nbsp;"It is rarely enjoyed by women or transgender men and women, queer people or people of color. When you are an Other, you are always in danger of having your body or some other intimate part of yourself exposed in one way or another."</span><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">I</span>t's not just celebrity women who aren't seen as having the right to bodily autonomy and privacy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While there is, rightly, outcry over last weekend's leak of celebrities' private photos onto the internet, defending the privacy of people who are out of the limelight is an ongoing challenge.&nbsp;&nbsp;it actually took a class-action lawsuit to figure out men should not be allowed to videotape women's strip searches in jail. That's right—just last week, a federal judge ruled that it is unconstitutional for male guards to videotape the strip searches. This is a description of&nbsp;<a href="http://civil-rights-law.tumblr.com/post/10246528243" target="_blank">how the strip searches took place</a>&nbsp;in the&nbsp;<span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center:</span></p>
<blockquote><p>“When women are moved to the Segregation Unit for mental health or disciplinary reasons, they are strip searched. With four or more officers present, the inmate must: take off all her clothes, lift her breasts and, if large, her stomach, turn around, bend over, spread her buttocks with her hands and cough, and stand up and face the wall. If the woman is menstruating, she must remove her tampon or pad and hand it to a guard. An officer with a video camera stands a few feet away and records the entire strip search. This officer is almost always male.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Since September 2008, the male staff have videotaped 274 strip searches.&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #333333;">In 2009, Debra Baggett, who was held in that jail between 2008 and 2010, wrote a letter complaining about the practice to the law office of Howard Friedman. The lawyer's office investigated her complaints and learned that the jail had a written policy allowing men to videotape women's strip searches.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">When the jail refused to change its policy, Baggett and other women who had been subject to this practice filed suit. In April, a judge heard arguments in <em>Baggett v. Ashe</em>, the class-action lawsuit which grew to include the 178 women who had been videotaped while in jail.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><img src="http://bitchmagazine.org/sites/default/files/u2583/prison_final.jpg" alt="prisons are a feminist issue graphic" width="670" height="350" /><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Lawyers from both sides noted the lack of case law as to whether cross-gender videotaping of strip searches violates a person's constitutional rights. When I learned about the case and wrote about it for </span><a href="http://solitarywatch.com/2014/05/15/way-solitary-women-massachusetts-jail-get-strip-searched-videotaped/"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Solitary Watch</span></a><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> earlier this year, I asked currently and formerly incarcerated women if they'd ever experienced such a practice. Weeks and months after my piece was published, I was still receiving responses ranging from "No, this doesn't happen here" to the more emphatic "Hell no! That would make me want to vomit if that ever happened to me." From Alaska to Texas to Florida to California, women were horrified to hear about this practice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">But just because videotaping women's naked bodies seems confined to this one jail doesn't mean that women in other jails and prisons have the right to bodily autonomy and privacy. Every jail and prison allows strip searches, a way that </span>staff can--and do--sexually humiliate and abuse the people that they guard. Strip searches are not covered by legislation designed to prevent sexual abuse, such as the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which criminalizes sexual harassment, abuse and assault behind bars. While some systems have policies that prohibit cross-gender searching in an attempt to limit the potential for sexual abuse, even these fall short in systems that fail to respect the bodies and the dignity of the people inside<span style="color: #111111; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">.</span><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Andrea James, who was incarcerated in the federal prison in Danbury (<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-from-orange-is-the-new-black-prison-activism-free-her-rally" target="_blank">where <em>Orange is the New Black </em>takes place</a>) and is a founding member of advocacy group <a href="http://justiceashealing.org/">Families for Justice as Healing</a>, had never heard stories of videotaping strip searches. But she did have stories about sexual abuse by staff. <span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">According to policy in </span><a href="http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/dan/DAN_aohandbook.pdf"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Danbury</span></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> and </span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="http://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5324_011.pdf">all other federal prisons</a></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">, staff members of the opposite gender are not permitted to be in the shower area or in a position to view women's breasts, buttocks or genitalia (except in exigent circumstances). However, these policies seemed to be rarely enforced and, when breached, even more rarely addressed. In an email, James told me:&nbsp;</span></p>
<blockquote><p>It was not unusual for men to walk freely and unannounced throughout our living quarters and bathroom/shower areas. It was an everyday, all day thing. One time when I was showering a male officer walked through the shower area unannounced and when I screamed an obscenity at him he reported me to Keisha Perkins (the federal camp counselor at Danbury, the same woman who was just arrested and charged with accepting bribes to make early release recommendations). After questioning me about whether I called the officer the obscenity, Perkins told me that the male guards could walk anywhere they wanted to at any time, so long as they don't walk up to my shower stall and throw back the curtain, they can go anywhere at any time, unannounced.</p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">After <em>Baggett v. Ashe</em> was filed, the jail all but eliminated allowing male guards to videotape strip searches. </span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">"Now it happens less than one percent of the time," attorney David Milton, who represented the 178 women, stated in May while awaiting the court's decision. "If we're successful, we hope that the success of this lawsuit will send a message that women prisoners retain a core of human dignity and privacy that cannot be violated."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Last week, on August 26, 2014, a federal judge did send that message, stating, "In sum, no legitimate penological interest justified the regular practice of using male officers to videotape female inmates while they were being strip searched."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Who do we think is entitled to privacy? Is it a right that gets taken away if you get arrested? What about if you become famous? Privacy shouldn't be seen as a privilege; it should be a right that is respected for all people, regardless of gender, fame or circumstances.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color: #333333; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/why-does-california-need-a-sterilization-prohibition-bill-maybe-because-the-state-sterilized-ne" target="_blank">We Need to Face America's Dark History of Sterilizing People Behind Bars.</a>&nbsp;</span></em></p>
<p><em>Victoria Law is a freelance editor and writer. She frequently writes about intersections of incarceration, gender and resistance.&nbsp;She enjoys reading dystopic fiction to escape the realities of the U.S. prison system.&nbsp;</em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/privacy-isnt-a-privilege-and-not-just-for-female-celebrities-strip-search-prison-naked-photos-leaked#commentsprisonsPoliticsThu, 04 Sep 2014 18:51:33 +0000Victoria Law27312 at http://bitchmagazine.orgWho Thinks Race Isn't a Big Deal in Ferguson?http://bitchmagazine.org/post/who-thinks-race-isnt-an-big-deal-in-ferguson
<p><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3887/14963056442_0098b8b928_c.jpg" alt="a black child sits on a curb, surrounded by protest signs" width="670" height="420" /></p>
<p><em>A child takes a break during an anti-police brutality protest this week in Milwaukee. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/40969298@N05/14963056442/sizes/c/" target="_blank">Photo by Light Brigading.</a></em></p>
<p class="p1">The short answer: Mostly white people.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">The Pew Research Center <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/08/18/stark-racial-divisions-in-reactions-to-ferguson-police-shooting/" target="_blank">polled 1,000 Americans in the past few days</a> about the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. When the pollsters asked about what the shooting reveals about racial issues in America, the divide was stark: 80 percent of black respondents said the shooting raised important issues about race. Meanwhile, 47 percent of white Americans thought race was getting too much attention. It’s important to note that this survey talked only with people who had heard of the issues in Ferguson—it leaves out people who have ignored the news entirely.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/8-18-14_012.png" alt="a chart shows the racial breakdown of reactions to ferguson" width="309" height="400" />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/8-18-2014_03.png" alt="" width="309" height="400" /></p>
<p class="p1">The numbers are shocking—and they help us recognize that this is one more example of how white people have the privilege to ignore race. Because we live in a culture where whiteness has historically been considered the norm, white Americans can more often than not wander through our days and lives simply not thinking about race. That’s acutely true when it comes issues around policing and justice: A study released this spring showed that<a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/8/19/6044573/half-of-black-men-have-been-arrested-by-age-23" target="_blank"> nearly half of all black men in America have been arrested</a> at least once by age 23. When black men’s chances of being arrested are as good as flipping a coin, it’s impossible to ignore the role race plays in shaping our justice system. New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy has been another clear example of this reality. New York State Senator Eric Adams testified that the NYPD’s aggressive stop-and-frisk has disproportionately targeted black and Latino men because “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/nyregion/kelly-intended-frisks-to-instill-fear-senator-testifies.html?">he wanted to instill fear in them</a>, every time they leave their home they could be stopped by the police.” To say that “race gets too much attention” is a notion founded on the false idea that race doesn’t <em>really</em> impact peoples’ lives that much in America. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">This new poll shows how white and black Americans see the world with two different lenses. Just like stop-and-frisk was just not an issue for many white New Yorkers, nearly half of white Americans can look at this shooting, shrug their shoulders, and say, “What’s the big deal?” That perception not only colors Americans’ reactions to the shooting, but inevitably influence media coverage of the shooting and protests—especially at outlets that are trying to appeal to white demographics. It’s rare that news stories show this shooting as part of a systemic problem. Michael Brown’s death is often presented as a rare, unfortunate incident. But as <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry" target="_blank">Melissa Harris-Perry took time to point out</a> on her MSNBC show this weekend, it’s not actually that rare at all. “From 2006 to 2012, a white police officer killed a black person at least twice a week in this country,” Harris-Perry said. She began her show by reading the names of numerous unarmed black men who have been fatally shot by police in the past decade.</p>
<p class="p1"><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/screen_shot_2014-08-19_at_3.55.10_pm.png" alt="melissa harris-perry showing examples of unarmed black men shot by police" width="670" height="400" /></p>
<p class="p1">It’s impossible to watch her show and not recognize that these deaths have a racial component.&nbsp; But the racial split is also clearly a political divide: The poll shows that 68 percent of Democrats think the shooting raises important issues about race, while numbers are flipped for Republicans, with 61 percent of GOP members saying that race is being talked about too much.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">As <a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/08/do_latinos_care_about_ferguson.html" target="_blank">Aura Bogado points out at Colorlines</a>, this isn’t just a white and black issue. The poll also shows that 25 percent of white people said they were following news from Ferguson “closely,” but only 18 percent of Latino respondents were doing the same. “Non-black Latinos have a long way to go in confronting our anti-black biases. Paying attention to what’s happening Ferguson would be a good start,” writes Bogado. Despite the relatively low percentage of Latinos following this story, several <a href="http://www.latinpost.com/articles/19554/20140819/national-latino-organizations-michael-brown-ferguson-shooting-calls-congressional-review.htm" target="_blank">national Latino organizations have been quick to organize in support of police reform</a> after the shooting. The&nbsp;League of Latin American Citizens is calling on Congress to review its policy of distributing military weapons to local police and&nbsp;Hispanic Federation President José Calderón issued a statement calling for a "swift, just investigation to determine how another unarmed Black young man was killed by those who are given the solemn responsibility to protect and serve all of us."</p>
<p class="p2">In this <a href="http://qz.com/250701/12-things">excellent call to action</a>, writer Janee Woods points out how, on social media, it was mostly her friends of color who discussed the Ferguson shooting; though protests and police backlash took place night after night, her white friends instead actively posted news about the ice-bucket challenge and Robin Williams’ death. Woods advises white people to, among other things, read up on America’s racialized history in order to understand why race absolutely plays a role in both Brown’s shooting and the police reaction to protests. “Michael Brown’s murder is not a social anomaly or statistical outlier. It is the&nbsp;<a href="http://time.com/3104128/michael-brown-ferguson-cop-shooting-protests/%22%20%5Co%20%22Time:%20The%20Long,%20Tangle%20Roots%20of%20the%20Michael%20Brown%20Shooting">direct product</a>&nbsp;of deadly tensions born from decades of housing discrimination, white flight, intergenerational poverty and racial profiling,” writes Woods.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">While 47 percent of white Americans appear to be clueless about—or willfully uninterested in—this history, things may be changing. The Pew Center poll compared the responses to Brown’s shooting to responses to the verdict in the death of Trayvon Martin in the summer of 2013. When asked about whether race was getting too much attention in the Martin case, a whopping 60 percent of white Americans said yes, everyone was talking too much about race. Having that drop to only 47 percent of white Americans thinking race is being discussed too much in the Ferguson protests is an improvement, at least. Maybe white Americans are slowly learning from these tragedies that race is inextricable from perceptions of violence and security. But we should be able learn that lesson without the death of another young, black American.</p>
<p><em>Related Reading:<a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/we-are-not-all-trayvon-martin-race-and-george-zimmerman-trial" target="_blank"> We Are NOT All Trayvon Martin.</a>&nbsp;</em></p>
<p><em>Sarah Mirk is Bitch Media's online editor. &nbsp;</em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/who-thinks-race-isnt-an-big-deal-in-ferguson#commentsFergusonMichael BrownprisonsTrayvon MartinPoliticsTue, 19 Aug 2014 22:55:35 +0000Sarah Mirk27149 at http://bitchmagazine.orgReal-Life Women Incarcerated in the "Orange is the New Black" Prison Are Now Inspiring Activistshttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-from-orange-is-the-new-black-prison-activism-free-her-rally
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u2583/andrea_james.png" alt="andrea james" width="570" height="462" /></p>
<p><em>Andrea James, who spent a year-and-a-half in prison, speaking at the Free Her rally in Washington, DC.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>The women of <em><a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/tag/orange-is-the-new-black" target="_blank">Orange is the New Black</a></em>&nbsp;are, for the most part, fiction. But this summer, actual women who were incarcerated at the prison where the hit Netflix show takes place are organizing in for prison reform.</p>
<p>On June 21<sup>st</sup>, women who had been imprisoned at FCI Danbury, where&nbsp;<em>Orange is the New Black</em>&nbsp;author Piper Kerman served most of her sentence, convened on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a&nbsp;<a href="http://nationinside.org/campaign/community-restoration-campaign/posts/free-her-rally-on-june-21-2014-in-washington-dc/" target="_blank">rally called Free Her</a>.&nbsp;Over three hundred women, family members, and advocates, called for an end to mass incarceration and drew attention to the ways the War on Drugs devastates the lives of women, their families, and their communities.</p>
<p>"I sometimes spend my quiet time thinking about the women inside," said Beatrice Codianni, who spent 15 years in Danbury. "I think about the friendships forged in prison." She recalled sitting in the prison's packed TV room the night Obama was elected president. "We were so excited and we had such high hopes. We gathered around the TV and, when the results were announced, the women just roared. They, me, everyone was so excited. We said, 'Now we will have a president who will change these draconian mandatory sentences.' We had so much hope." Nearly eight years after that hope-filled night in Danbury's TV room, Codianni asked the crowd at the Free Her rally, "How many more elderly people will die in prison? How many more women will die from substandard medical care? How many more kids will be sent to foster care because their moms are locked up? I want Obama to release&nbsp;<em>all </em>prisoners who are locked up under the drug laws."</p>
<p>Here are the facts: Since 1980, the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=31635&amp;qid=1350781">rate of women's incarceration has increased</a>&nbsp;518 percent. In 1980, less than 13,000 women were in prison in the United States. By the end of 2012, that number had risen to over 108,000 (not including the 102,000 women in local jails). Women of color are disproportionately likely to be in prison: the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf">Bureau of Justice Statistics found that</a>&nbsp;black women had an imprisonment rate of nearly three times that of white women. The incarceration rate for Latinas is nearly twice that of white women.</p>
<p>The idea for the Free Her campaign began at a table in the prison yard at Danbury. There, five women realized that they needed to advocate for themselves and for other women behind bars. "I was surrounded by women serving long sentences," recalls Andrea James, who spent a year-and-a-half in prison. "They were separated from their children, their families and their communities." After reading about the American Legislative Exchange Council (<a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed">ALEC</a>), which brings together state legislators and corporations to draft model legislation such as mandatory minimum sentencing laws and Florida's controversial <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/six-perspectives-on-george-zimmermans-not-guilty-verdict" target="_blank">Stand Your Ground statute</a>, the women realized they needed a similar organization. "I couldn't think of an existing organization like this that mass-produced legislation working on the side of the people," says James.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://bitchmagazine.org/sites/default/files/u2583/prison_final.jpg" alt="prisons are a feminist issue" width="670" height="350" /></p>
<p>During their in-prison meetings, the women realized the need to draw public attention to the mass incarceration of women. Women, they realized, were ignored in many of the discussions around mass incarceration.</p>
<p>Here’s how James describes their conversations:</p>
<blockquote><p>"We wanted to have a huge public event to raise our voices and raise awareness of all the women inside who are separated from their families and communities. We want people to think about what happens to children and communities when a woman is incarcerated. We also want to let the legislative and executive branches know that people are paying attention. These are people we care about. These are people who are part of our families and communities."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That need grew into the&nbsp;Free Her rally&nbsp;and the nonprofit&nbsp;<a href="justiceashealing.org">Families for Justice&nbsp;as Healing</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"This is the first rally (that I know of) organized by formerly incarcerated women to demand freedom for other women in prison," said former political prisoner Susan Rosenberg, who spent 16 years in the federal system before being granted a pardon on President Clinton's last day in office. "This is about building a movement to end the mass incarceration of women." Rosenberg spent the last years of her sentence at Danbury. "Seeing the same people that I was in prison with [outside and here] now, seeing the success people have had despite everything has been astonishing." At the rally, Rosenberg pointed to what Obama could do to reform the prison system. "What would happen if Obama released 3000 women incarcerated for the war on drugs?" she asked the crowd. "They would come home. They would rebuild their lives and grow their communities." She reminded the audience that executive clemency, sentence commutations and sentence reductions are all within Obama's power and do not need new legislation. But, she added, "We have to remember the quote from Frederick Douglass: 'Power concedes nothing without a demand.'"</p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3885/14527709084_872d92de7e_b.jpg" alt="susan rosenberg and andrea james" width="542" height="760" /></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Andrea James, left, and Susan Rosenberg at the Free Her rally.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>Rosenberg is not the only alumna of Danbury to attend—and speak at—the Free Her rally. Although she had never used or dealt drugs,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/detail/feature.cfm?feature_id=11">Dorothy Gaines</a>&nbsp;was sentenced to 20 years in prison on conspiracy charges after her boyfriend, a low-level drug dealer, was arrested. She fought for her freedom and, in 2000, received executive clemency from President Clinton. She traveled from Alabama to Washington, DC, to speak at the Free Her rally. She and Rosenberg are also real-life examples of the demand that the president release those imprisoned under the War on Drugs.</p>
<p>Lashonia Etheridge spent 19 years in prison, mostly at Danbury. "I see a lot of women that I served a lot of time with. We were like family," she said. But seeing the women that she called family also reminds her of the women who remain behind bars. "It's not okay to incarcerate women for non-violent drug offenses for lengthy times.”</p>
<p>In April, the Obama administration announced it would&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/dag/speeches/2014/dag-speech-140423.html">review the sentences of federal drug war prisoners for possible commutation</a>, raising the hopes of many that the women they'd left behind would see life outside the bars soon. But, as Susan Rosenberg noted and Andrea James reiterated, change will not come without a fight. "I don't want people to leave here thinking that what's being said in the White House is making a difference," says Andrea James. "We are in the thick of a fight.”&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Related Reading: <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/what-pennsatucky%E2%80%99s-teeth-tell-us-about-class-in-america" target="_blank">What Pennsatucky's Teeth Tell Us About Class in America.&nbsp;</a></em></p>
<p><em><em><em><em>Victoria Law is a voracious reader and freelance writer who frequently writes about gender, incarceration and resistance. She is also the author of&nbsp;</em><a href="http://resistancebehindbars.org/" target="_blank">Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women</a><em>. Prisons graphic made by Michelle Leigh. &nbsp;</em></em></em></em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-from-orange-is-the-new-black-prison-activism-free-her-rally#commentsactivismOrange is the New BlackprisonsPoliticsMon, 07 Jul 2014 21:27:19 +0000Victoria Law26609 at http://bitchmagazine.orgOn Our Radar: Feminist News Rounduphttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/on-our-radar-feminist-news-roundup-189
<p dir="ltr">• We’re still reeling from the absolutely tragic shootings at UC Santa Barbara last weekend. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/05/_yesallwomen_in_the_wake_of_elliot_rodger_why_it_s_so_hard_for_men_to_recognize.html">Conversations about our societal blind spot for misogyny</a>, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/05/elliot-rodger-and-poisonous-ideals-of-masculinity/371588/">troubling definitions of masculinity</a>, and the fear of violence that all women face have continued throughout the week. [Slate, The Atlantic]</p>
<p dir="ltr">• <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/apostasy-woman-in-sudan-sentenced-to-death-forced-to-give-birth-with-her-legs-chained-9451088.html">A pregnant Sudanese woman sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christianity was forced to give birth in prison with her legs shackled</a>. The 27-year-old doctor was convicted of apostasy and adultery and sentenced to death by a court in Khartoum after refusing to renounce her Christian faith during a four day ‘grace period’ while she was eight months pregnant. [The Independent]</p>
<p dir="ltr">• <a href="http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/05/lupita_nyong_o_options_film_rights_to_chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_s_americanah.html">Lupita Nyong has optioned the rights to <em>Americanah</em></a>, one of the 10 Best Books of the year last year, according to the <em>New York Times Book Review</em>. The love story centers on a young man and woman from Nigeria “who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.” We’re looking forward to seeing how the project develops. [The Root]</p>
<p dir="ltr">• This week, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/mother-wants-answers-after-teenage-daughters-armpits-were-shaved-by-teacher-20140529-396jg.html">a teenage girl in Australia had her armpits forcibly shaved by her school teacher in front of several other students</a>. The teacher claimed it was part of the schools’ “life-skills curriculum.” The girl’s mother is fighting back, saying that this “invaded her daughter's rights as a person.” [Sydney Morning Herald]</p>
<p dir="ltr">• <em>Orange is the New Black</em> star <a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/05/laverne_cox_makes_history_on_the_cover_of_time.html">Laverne Cox made history this week by being the first transgender person to be featured on the cover of <em>Time</em> magazine</a>. Cox tweeted a thank you to fans, whom she credits for pressuring the magazine with #whereislavernecox after it snubbed her for the Time 100 list. [Colorlines]</p>
<p dir="ltr">• Unfortunately, the fight for transgender rights is just beginning. <a href="http://roygbiv.jezebel.com/trans-women-assaulted-on-train-one-stripped-passenger-1582963179/+burtreynoldsismyspiritguide1">Two transgender women were assaulted on Atlanta’s public transit system this week</a>. The assaults were recorded on multiple cell phones while bystanders did nothing to help them. Transit cops refused to write a report when the women asked for help. Just awful. [Jezebel]</p>
<p>• Siren, poet, and inspiration Neko Case, reminded us this week why she’s amazing. <a href="http://bullettmedia.com/article/neko-case-perfect-response-playboys-condescending-review/"><em>Playboy</em> magazine thought they were giving Case’s latest album a positive review by saying that it transcends the “gender divide</a> in love songs” and then tweeting that Case was “breaking the mold of what women should be in the music industry.” Case’s response: “<a href="https://twitter.com/PlayboyDotCom">@PlayboyDotCom</a> Am I? IM NOT A FUCKING “WOMAN IN MUSIC”, IM A FUCKING MUSICIAN IN MUSIC!” If you’re not following her already, you might want to start. [Bullet]</p>
<p><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3735/14119809920_d9e86e3ac9_z.jpg" alt="Laverne Cox on the cover of Time magazine" height="640" width="640" /></p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/on-our-radar-feminist-news-roundup-189#commentsLupita Nyong'oNeko Caseplayboyprisonssexual assaulttransgenderNewsFri, 30 May 2014 16:38:39 +0000Erica Thomas26260 at http://bitchmagazine.orgWhy Do People in Prison Go on Hunger Strike? http://bitchmagazine.org/post/why-would-people-in-prison-launch-a-hunger-strike-hint-its-not-just-one-minor-issue
<p class="p1"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2821/12754340325_ae064bee9e_o.jpg" alt="a photo of news coverage of the hunger strike, which says the inmates are refusing vegetarian food" width="640" height="360" /></p>
<p class="p1">Two weeks ago, women incarcerated at <a href="http://www.arizonaprisonwatch.org/2014/02/valentines-day-surprise-men-join-women.html" target="_blank">Estrella Jail in Phoenix, Arizona staged a hunger strike</a>. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who runs the jail, told media that the women were striking over the all-vegetarian meals being served.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/24709322/2014/02/12/female-inmates-protest-vegetarian-meals-with-hunger-strike" target="_blank">His direct quote was actually</a>: "They ought to shut up and eat what they have, they happen to be in jail and I'm the sheriff and I'm the chief chef I decide what they eat.” Spinning the women's protest as just a knee-jerk response to having to eat vegetarian food helps turn a serious hunger strike into a punchline.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p2">But the women's issue is more than the lack of meat—they charge that the food served is spoiled and moldy and that the people in charge of their care (like the charming Sheriff Arpaio) don’t seem to care about their valid concerns.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p2">On Thursday February 13<sup>th</sup>, the hunger striking women were joined by 90 people in the jail's male unit who refused dinner. That action drew media attention—the&nbsp;<em>Arizona Republic&nbsp;</em>published a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.azcentral.com/communi">short piece on the hunger strike</a>, interviewing two of the men (but none of the women) involved. One man told the&nbsp;<em>Republic</em>&nbsp;that he had been motivated to participate in the hunger strike as an act of solidarity with the women: “If a woman does it, I’m gonna do it. That’s what men are supposed to do.”&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p2">People who want to change unjust policies have some effective tools at their disposal: social media, public meetings, the ability to take to the streets. But in jails and prisons, the tools of protest are severely limited. In an environment where the ability to organize and speak to both family and media is greatly limited, refusing to eat is one of the few things people can do to draw media attention to prison conditions and speak up for themselves in mainstream media. Prisoners have staged numerous hunger strikes in recent memory. Last year, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/05/guantanamo-hunger-strikes-hundred-hungry-men.html" target="_blank">hunger strikes in Guantanamo Bay</a> and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/50-days-california-prisons-hunger-strike-explainer" target="_blank">California's Pelican Bay Supermax</a> made repeated headlines across the nation. This past January, people at Illinois's Menard State Prison launched a hunger strike&nbsp;<a href="http://inthesetimes.com/prison-complex/entry/16291/menard_hunger_strike_prison_administrative_detention/">to protest their open-ended placement in solitary confinement</a>. Now four weeks into the strike, they have also declared a liquids strike.</p>
<p class="p3">When powerful people like Sheriff Arpaio do all they can to paint prisoners as complainers, what they’re really trying to do is control the media narrative around prison issues. While over 100 men who have been held without charges or trials for over a decade in Guantanamo went on hunger strike last year, for example, prison officials continued to describe the desperate detainees as <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/06/30/Report-Gitmo-Prisoners-Are-So-Pampered-Even-Hunger-Strikers-Gain-Weight" target="_blank">“some of the most pampered prisoners on the planet.”</a> After major international attention focused on Guantanamo’s hunger strike throughout 2013, military officials declared a media blackout. <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/03/3795285/guantanamo-ends-daily-hunger-strike.html">Reporters couldn’t help but point out</a> that refusing to release the number of people on strike in Guantanamo runs contrary to the prison’s official motto: “Safe, humane, legal, transparent detention.”&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p2">"In that [prison] situation there aren't many ways you can speak out against injustices. They have to go to the extreme and do a hunger strike," Uptown Law Center prisoner rights coordinator Brian Nelson&nbsp;<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/10-6">told&nbsp;<em>Common Dreams</em></a>. Nelson should know—when he was incarcerated at the now-closed Tamms Supermax Prison, he took part in a hunger strike that lasted 30 days.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p2">Although officials try to spin strikes as being motivated by one minor issue or another, people behind bars frequently utilize hunger strikes to challenge (and sometimes successfully change) inhumane prison practices. Hunger strikes have the ability to attract outside attention in ways that following prison protocol—such as filing grievances and working through the paperwork—do not. For the women in Phoenix's Estrella jail, however, filing grievances against the moldy food was not even an option. They reported that jail staff told them that they were not allowed to file grievances even though they had done so about other conditions in the past.</p>
<p class="p2" style="padding-left: 90px;"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7429/12754340305_caa35df57f.jpg" alt="Sherriff Joe arpaio" width="428" height="500" /></p>
<p class="p2">The fact that hunger strikes often lead to brutal retaliation (including force feeding) shows how strongly people need outside attention and media coverage of their conditions. For instance, California's recent 60-day prison hunger strike pulled national attention to the issue of indefinite solitary confinement. In a joint statement of support, California legislators <a href="http://www.asmdc.org/members/a17/press-releases/joint-hearing-on-solitary-confinement" target="_blank">Loni Hancock and Tom Ammiano credited the hunger strikers</a> for forcing the issue into the spotlight: "The issues raised by the hunger strike are real—concerns about the use and conditions of solitary confinement in California’s prisons—are real and can no longer be ignored." Lesiglators Ammiano and Hancock convened several hearings on the issue and Ammiano also recently proposed a bill that would place a 36-month cap on how long someone labeled as part of a "security threat group" can be kept in solitary confinement. Thirty-six months is extremely long time to be held in solitary, but current practice in California prisons allows for indefinite solitary confinement. Would these hearings—and the proposed bill—be happening had thousands of people not put their bodies on the line to draw attention to these issues?</p>
<p class="p2">Even when they don't garner the extensive media attention that the California strikes did, some hunger strikes have forced jail and prison administrations to change conditions. For instance, in 1988, 28 women at Oregon Women's Correctional Center organized a hunger strike and sit-down protest against the absence of available educational programming for women. The result? Women were allowed to participate in college programs that had previously only been offered at the men's prison. In 1992, nearly every Haitian immigrant locked away at the Krome Detention Center in Florida went on hunger strike to protest the immigration policy that said Haitian refugees must be detained while Cuban asylum seekers could go free. The strike had some effect: in the six months that followed, 88 of the 159 Haitain asylum seekers were released from the detention center.</p>
<p class="p2">Right now, no one is sure if women are still on strike in Phoenix's Estrella Jail. In an email, one concerned friend stated that she hadn't heard from her loved one in a few days and was growing worried. She disputed Sheriff Arpaio's claim that the women were simply unhappy with the jail's meatless meals: "They just wanted safe food to eat and someone to listen about the deplorable conditions.”</p>
<p class="p2"><em>Victoria Law is a voracious reader and freelance writer who frequently writes about gender, incarceration and resistance. She is also the author of&nbsp;</em><a href="http://resistancebehindbars.org/">Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women</a><em>.</em></p>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/why-would-people-in-prison-launch-a-hunger-strike-hint-its-not-just-one-minor-issue#commentshunger strikemediaprisonsPoliticsMon, 24 Feb 2014 20:43:30 +0000Victoria Law25194 at http://bitchmagazine.org